Canada’s House of Commons passes transgender bill

OTTAWA, Ontario, February 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Canada’s House of Commons narrowly passed a ‘transgender’ bill Wednesday evening in a vote of 143-135.

Bill C-389, which seeks to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Canada Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code’s hate crimes section, will now move to the Senate for consideration.

“We find the whole thing appalling,” said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition. “We find the lack of opposition from church leaders especially was deafening. The people are ignorant of it and what is going to happen next.”

“Hopefully the Senate votes it down or Parliament dissolves before it is signed into law,” he added.

The bill has been opposed by numerous religious and pro-family organizations including the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Catholic Organization for Life and Family, Campaign Life Coalition, REAL Women of Canada, and the Canada Family Action Coalition.

Pro-family leaders pointed out that organizations like the American College of Pediatricians treat gender confusion as a mental illness, meaning Canadian law would recognize a mental disorder as normal. This could, they say, make it even harder for children and others who struggle with gender identity disorder (GID) to obtain treatment.

It has been dubbed a ‘bathroom bill’ because it would allow men who say they are women to use women’s washrooms, with a danger of increasing bathroom attacks against women.

Pro-family leaders also warn that the federal government will be forced to hire gender-confused individuals, which could cause big problems for the military and the RCMP, for example. The government could even be required to pay for sex-change operations, and businesses could be obliged to hire transsexuals or install washrooms to accommodate cross-dressers.

Just this week, Campaign Life Coalition warned that the bill would further cement the move to have kindergarten students tackle “gender identity” issues. They pointed to Ontario’s full-day kindergarten curriculum which requires teachers to combat “preconceived notions” about the gender of the five-year-olds.

The bill, sponsored by NDP MP Bill Siksay, won support from a majority of MPs at report stage in December, in a vote of 143-131. This is Siksay’s third attempt to bring the bill after it failed to make it to the House in 2006 and 2007. He introduced the current bill on May 15th, 2009.